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The Evening Post
April 2, 2002
Author slams lump-sum payments
NZPA
Dunedin author Lynley
Hood has joined critics of a law that took effect yesterday allowing lump-sum
payments to victims of physical injury and sexual abuse.
People who suffer from injury or sexual abuse after April 1 will be eligible
for a lump-sum payment ranging from $2500 to $100,000 under the Injury
Prevention, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act.
The payments will be administered by ACC.
The law marks a return to lump-sum payments, scrapped by National in 1992 in
favour of an independence allowance, set at a maximum of $62.48 a week.
Hood, who spent several years researching the implications of sexual assault
allegations for her book on the Peter Ellis case at Christchurch Civic
Creche, said the legislation was a minefield.
"There's the basic issue of lump-sum compensation and whether it's a
good idea at all . . .
"It can encourage people to maximise their agony to maximise their
gain," she said.
"The biggest problem as far as sexual abuse goes is the problem of
fraud, which ACC refuses to face up to."
Hood said there was no mechanism for determining whether the sexual abuse
actually took place and ACC policy guidelines encouraged "vulnerable
people into believing they had been sexually abused and that was the cause of
their problems".
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